Our Priorities

Science, Research & Healthcare

Scientific research and direct patient care are inextricably linked. At the Azrieli Foundation we support scientific research from bench to bedside. We enable the training of scientists and clinicians who are charting new territory and changing paradigms.

The Jewish General Hospital is now home to a multidisciplinary heart centre that will make pioneering advances in the field of cardiac imaging after receiving the largest single donation in its history from the Azrieli Foundation.

Advancing Research

The Azrieli Neurodevelopmental Research Project (ANRP) supports research with a special focus on Autism Spectrum Disorder and Fragile X Syndrome. Operated in partnership with Brain Canada, the goal of ANRP is to develop new diagnostics, treatment and prevention strategies for neurodevelopmental disorders to reduce their economic and social burden on Canadians, and to improve the quality of life for those affected by neurodevelopmental disorders and their families.

In partnership with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Azrieli Foundation is supporting cutting-edge biomedical research through a seven-year, $35 million program. The Canadian-Israeli effort will draw on the scientific strengths of both countries and work with peers from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Together, the initiative is expected to fund up to 30 collaborative projects.

The Azrieli Centre for Autism Research will foster innovations in therapy and a better understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The new centre in Montreal is poised to help lift the shroud of mystery surrounding Autism Spectrum Disorder, and lead to the development of better diagnostic tools and more effective therapies for people with autism.

The Azrieli National Institute for Human Brain Imaging and Research centres around a high-field 7Tesla MRI facility, the only such one in Israel. Building on the Weizmann Institute’s strengths in core human brain research, magnetic resonance physics, image processing disciplines and valuable collaborations the Institute has established at national and international levels, the AHBI is a world-leading research entity, pushing the boundaries of brain imaging and neuroscience.

CIFAR has been successfully taking on difficult scientific challenges for more than three decades by undertaking global research programs connecting many of the world’s best minds – across borders and between disciplines – to shape new perspectives and spark groundbreaking ideas. CIFAR offers research fellows the rarest of commodities: freedom to take the kinds of intellectual risks that are essential for creating truly transformative knowledge.

The Azrieli Foundation supports CIFAR through two outstanding programs which expand the boundaries of understanding in ways that might otherwise not be possible: Azrieli Program in Brain, Mind and Consciousness and CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars.

The Azrieli Program in Brain, Mind and Consciousness brings together researchers from a broad range of disciplines including cognitive neuroscientists, neurologists, geneticists and other biologists, anthropologists, psychologists, computational scientists, philosophers, artists and others – in order to understand how our brains give rise to consciousness and form our unique perspective on the world around us. This research aims to transform our fundamental understanding of brain functioning.

The Azrieli Institute for Systems Biology provides a platform for collaboration between various disciplines that, together, are creating new, holistic approaches to characterizing the networks that govern complex interactions within biological systems. From genome architecture and function, to model organism development, to the multi-scale dynamics that drive both health and disease, Systems Biology provides a computational framework for understanding life in all its complexity. The Azrieli Institute for Systems Biology, now in its sixth year is poised to make tremendous insights to better our collective understanding of antibiotic resistance, how new viruses arise and even why chemotherapy is sometimes ineffective.

Dedicated to conducting pioneering research towards enhancing the fields of cellular and molecular mechanisms, the Center is home to Israel’s leading scientists and international collaborators, and specializes in the study of genetic disorders such as Down Syndrome and Prader-Willi Syndrome, with a special focus on Fragile X Syndrome.

The first center of its kind in Israel brings together the best minds in life sciences, medicine, engineering and the natural sciences to decipher the basic mechanisms that underlie cancer and to develop new treatments and invent cutting-edge early stage diagnostic technologies. The support of the Azrieli Foundation has made possible the bio-informatics and epigenetic core of the TICC, led by Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover.

Research Grants

The Azrieli Foundation supports the work of brilliant scientists, most recently:

This fellowship provides early-career physicians and scientists from Israel with the opportunity to seek new approaches to medical diagnosis and treatments through placements at Canadian academic centres in facilities affiliated with the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.

Save A Child’s Heart, (SACH), is an Israeli-based international humanitarian project that provides urgently needed pediatric heart surgery to vulnerable children living in developing countries. Dedicated to its mission that every child deserves the best medical treatment available, regardless of nationality, religion, race, gender or financial circumstance, the International Pediatric Cardiac Center will ensure many more children’s lives are saved for years to come.

Schneider Children’s is all about children. As the only comprehensive, tertiary care hospital of its kind in Israel and in the Middle East, Schneider’s has revolutionized the practice of pediatric medicine and has been recognized as one of the leading pediatric institutions in the world focused on a “whole-child-care” multidisciplinary approach.

Since its establishment in 1936, the Rabin Medical Center has served as a leader in the use of clinical technologies while maintaining the highest standards of quality patient-centered medical and nursing care.

Hope & Cope helps people cope with cancer. Guided by professional staff, cancer-experienced volunteers provide psychosocial support and practical resources that help patients regain a sense of control and well-being, reduce isolation and restore hope. Easily accessible and open to all, Hope & Cope is funded, in part, by the Azrieli Foundation and is located at the Jewish General Hospital’s Segal Cancer Centre and the JGH/Hope & Cope Wellness Centre.